What happens when policymakers create statewide school districts to turn around their worst-performing public schools? In Louisiana and Tennessee, Recovery School Districts (RSDs) have made modest-to-strong progress for kids and serve as national models for what the future of education governance might hold.

In the Great Lakes State, the story is more complicated.

In Redefining the School District in Michigan, Nelson Smith examines the progress of the Education Achievement Authority (EAA). The EAA shares basic features with its brethren in Louisiana and Tennessee in that all three are charged with resuscitating the state’s worst schools within the confines of a separate, autonomous school district.

But unlike the RSD in the Bayou State—which comprises over eighty schools statewide—the EAA is so far a smaller effort; it is responsible for just fifteen schools, all in Detroit, with further expansion stymied. Like Tennessee's Achievement School District (ASD), the EAA was created in response to the Race to the Top competition. Yet it is an interesting hybrid of both existing models, combining the governance reforms of the RSD and ASD with a big push for competency-based learning.

States that want to embrace this approach to school turnarounds need to create conditions that are essential to success, Fordham’s report concludes. Michigan’s effort—though laudable and in many ways heroic—was hobbled from the start from too many compromises and too little political support.

KidsOhio.org, a highly respected education-policy group based in Columbus, released a fact sheet today on the schools that are eligible for a “parent trigger” intervention. Twenty schools in Columbus City School District have been identified, on the basis of falling within the bottom 5 percent in the state in student achievement for three consecutive years. In layman’s terms, these schools have enormous and persistent struggles with low student achievement.

The parent-trigger law, only applicable to Columbus district schools, permits four different interventions—from charter-school conversion to contracting with non-district entities to operate the school. The trigger is contingent on 50 percent of the school’s parents or guardians petitioning the school board for the change. As my colleague has pointed out, several issues muddy our judgment on whether parents and policymakers should actually use a trigger-based intervention.

But regardless of whether or not the parent-trigger is used, this group of schools—especially those with lower value-added scores—need to improve significantly. So one of the interesting things on the fact sheet was the hyperlinks to each school’s “improvement plan.”

But these “plans” can only be described as anywhere from meager to pathetic. Here is one example, from Mifflin Middle School’s improvement plan, rated D in performance index and F in value-added—a truly struggling school. (Note, I’ve looked at all twenty of the “improvement plans”; they all are generally of this quality—some slightly better, some worse.)

Amber's Research Minute

Transcript

Mike: Hello, this is your host Mike Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Here at The Education Gadfly show, and online at edexcellence.net. Now please join me welcoming my co-host. The Kansas City Royals of education policy, Robert Pondiscio.

Robert: That could be bad news for us. Do you know why?

Mike: Why is that?

Robert: That means this could be a really long podcast.

Mike: A really long day. I always love going into extra innings, all the time. But they win.

Robert: They do. We'll try to get this done in nine.

Mike: They are spunky, I like it. Interesting, the American League, both sweeps. As we do this podcast right now, the National League series each 2-1. That may be different by the time folks listen. What does this mean? It just means in my view that the National League is better.

Robert: More competitive balance, perhaps?

Mike: Maybe, that's it.

Robert: It's hard to root against those Royals.

Mike: Oh, but I will because I'm rooting for my Cardinals. So Go Cards. It's an exciting time.

You know? It's hard Robert, that every year, this time of year, us Cardinals fans have the Cardinals in the playoffs. I mean it's ...

Robert: Oh yes.

Mike: I feel bad for the other cities in the country sometimes.

Robert: It stinks to be you.

Mike: It's tough.

Robert: I'm a Mets fan. I feel your pain.

Mike: What is it that there's the whole meme on the internet about how people hate the St. Louis Cardinals now. What is that?

Robert:

Robert: Do you know why? Because the Yankees didn’t make the playoffs. If it weren't for the Yankees, the Cardinals would be the Yankees. They're the second most successful franchise in baseball.

Mike: Oh my God, but we're not the Yankees. They don’t have the money of the Yankees. They certainly aren't in New York.

Robert: Rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for Microsoft.

Mike: Exactly. Okay. Let's get started with, "Pardon the Gadfly." Intern Ellen, take it away.

Ellen: As a way to combat years of budget woes, Philadelphia freed up money this week by cancelling its teacher's contract. Is it fair to blame the state or the teachers for the district's near bankruptcy?

Mike: This is the school reform commission. This is the commission appointed by what the state, and I believe, the Mayor had a role in this.

Robert: Back in '98, or some such?

Mike: It's been around a long time. They basically have said, "Look, we are tired of being on the brink of bankruptcy as we are every year recently. We are going to cancel this teacher contract because it's costing us too much money"

Mike: "We're going to make teachers do things like pay some of the co-pays and premiums for their health insurance."

Robert: Right. That's one way to rein in runaway health costs, I guess. I'm not sure this gets them away from the brink of bankruptcy. At least not for very long. It saved, what? 44 or 54 million dollars, I think?

Mike: Here's the question Robert. The unions want to say that the state has been under funding Philadelphia schools, causing this crisis. You look at the numbers, I think the last numbers I saw was something like $12,000 per pupil. This is not exactly bottom basement spending here. Maybe not as high as some cities, but certainly not the lowest. What's your take on the situation in Philadelphia? Who's right here? Who's fault is it that every year they have a funding crisis?

Robert: Wow, I'm not really sure. Because this feels to me like legal terra incognito. I'm not aware. Are you? Has this ever been done before? Just unilaterally cancelling a contract?

Mike: The contract? I was asking a different question. Now they have, I believe they have the authority in the reform law to go ahead and cancel that contract.

Robert: I'm not sure they do.

Mike: Well, we'll find out. The bigger question is this, whose fault is it? When you look at the contract, and you look at the situation. Philly, you say, "Okay, they're spending a fair amount of money. Where is the money going?" Well guess what? They have a huge pension problem right?

Robert: Yep.

Mike: A huge hole in their pension system, so a huge amount of that money is going to shore up the pensions. Then you also look at the teacher pay, and the teacher benefits. You say for example, "Philadelphia teachers aren't paying much for their health care costs." It seems reasonable today that "You know what? Like everybody else, you should have to pay some of these premiums."

Robert: Yes, but they've been negotiating this for quite a while, right? They could not get the teachers to agree to this.

Mike: Right.

Robert: This feels to me like a little bit of an exercise in frustration. Maybe bad politics? I'm not sure. You’re point's well taken.

Mike: You're such a softy. Robert, what are you? Come on! You're going to take the teacher's side on this one? Come on!

Mike: Look, I understand. We want to pay our teachers well. They should have predictable salaries and benefits. We should also not be giving public employees a deal that nobody else gets. Which is basically saying., "We're going to have free health care. We're going to have incentives for you to limit your health care spending." This is a huge issue.

Robert: I agree, but there's two sets of signatures on that contract.

Mike: Exactly, and so this one side of this contract is saying, "You know what? We're getting a bad deal. Forget about it. My bad."

Robert: "We changed our mind."

Mike: "We changed our mind." Okay, topic number two.

Ellen: Washington State has lost its NCLB waiver because its legislator refuses to tie teacher evaluations to student scores. Mike, You disagree with waiver revocations, and some are saying that you want to give states a free pass. Is that true?

Mike: It is not true!

Robert: Explain yourself Mr. Pachelli, I thought you quoted in the New York Times on this.

Mike: I did. Look, I think Artie Duncan is way out on a limb here. I would love for Washington State to sue over this. I think they've got quite a case because where in the No Child Left Behind Act, does it say that if you want flexibility from the accountability provisions, you have to adopt a teacher evaluation system?

The words teacher evaluation are not in the No Child Left Behind Act. Because back in 2001, nobody was thinking about this. Right?

Robert: Sure.

Mike: So Arnie Duncan dreams up this new mandate, attaches it to the waivers. I don’t think there's any legal basis for that whatsoever. I also think it's terrible policy. To have states going thought this process of developing these teacher evaluations because they want to get this federal waiver. Not because they think it's a good idea. It's very predictable, what happens? Many states are doing it poorly.

That is causing a backlash to the idea of teacher evaluations. Which the idea is an okay idea. It's also causing a backlash to things like Common Core.

Robert: Sure.

Mike: I don’t see what Arnie Duncan is doing here. I think he's totally on the wrong side of this. I don’t want to give states a pass, Robert, or Ellen. They should still have to follow the law in terms of accountability. Arnie Duncan can say how much flexibility they're allowed to have around the accountability provisions of the law. That's fine. He is not allowed to dream up new mandates.

Robert: Yes, I agree. On the other hand, I shouldn't say on the other hand. This is a little bit bizarre to me that Duncan is saying on the one hand that Washington broke its promise, and has to pay a price. Just a few weeks ago he was saying that the testing is sucking the life out of the room of schools.

Mike: Yes.

Robert: So there's very much of a mixed message coming from the administration on this.

Mike: Robert, it's Orwellian.

Robert: It kind of is.

Mike: Here's people who say, "We are out there saying the old No Child Left Behind system is broken. It's identifying now way too many schools in Washington State as failing." They don’t like the tutoring provisions. They're saying, "But we're going to make you do all of that stuff that we know isn’t working. Is arguably bad for kids. Because a bunch of state politicians wouldn’t do what we wanted them to do. “Talk about "Friendly fire." Explain that to teachers. Explain that to kids.

Robert: Yes. It feels to me like Duncan is saying, "Look, I don't make the laws. I just enforce the laws." But wait a minute. You do make the laws in this instance.

Mike: You do make the laws.

Robert: It's kind of bizarre. What a mess. On the other hand, I feel like we're going to have this ...

Mike: How many hands do you have?

Robert: I have a lot of hands today. At least three. Then I'm going to borrow one of Ellen's.

I feel like we really need to settle once and for all the role of testing in Ed policy. Because we're just going to have these battles over and over again.

This is just another example of this complicated relationship that we have with testing. Does it do what we want? Do we need accountability? Is this the kind of accountability, once you start looking at testing that works for some things, not for others? It just gets so muddy.

I just wish once and for all as a field, we could settle out our relationship with testing.

Mike: I like that pun, "Muddy."

Robert: We were just talking about Washington State.

Mike: Oh very good.

Robert: That's a good one.

Mike: Okay, topic number three, Ellen. Ellen, who now only has one hand. Very strange.

Robert: Don’t try to clap with that one.

Mike: All right.

Ellen: New York City Schools will no longer receive letter grades after the city moved to a gentler system that's more description, than assessment. Does it matter?

Mike: So Robert, this is the kinder gentler approach of Carmen Farina and Mayor Bill de Blasio? Is this okay? Do we care?

Robert: We do care. But first, let's all join hands and sing a little bit of "Kumbaya", here, shall we? This is another one of those issues ...

Mike: Why are we singing "Kumbaya?"

Robert: Well, because we're replacing the hard and fast A through F grades, with a more, call it what you will, "fuzzy", take on accountability and grading schools.

I have a complicated relationship with this, too. On the one hand, I want to spur greater parental involvement in schools, and the A through F grades are very helpful in that regard. It's clear, simple, easy to understand. On the other hand, I did it again. On the other hand, it's reductive, right?

Mike: You really need to be that Indian God. What's his name?

Robert: With all the arms. That's exactly right.

Mike: Or an octopus.

Robert: New York City, where I live and have taught, has a particularly buisenteen

way of evaluating schools. The thing that I've never quite liked, which you could argue is condescending even. Is they evaluate schools compared to their peer group. That makes perfect sense, on the one hand.

On the other hand, you could have an A school, that you're basically saying that it's an A school for poor kids.

Mike: Right.

Robert: As opposed to an A school on the Upper East Side, or Tribeca.

Mike: Here's the fundamental confusion, I think. What is the purpose of these school grades?

Robert: Right.

Mike: If you're trying to provide feedback to a school so that it can improve itself, then a very comprehensive and somewhat complicated scoring system makes sense.

Robert: Sure.

Mike: You want to give them a lot of information back that the teacher's and maybe a parents council can sit around and say, "Okay, what can we do better next year" Very different than something that the typical parent can use.

Robert: Right.

Mike: Especially in this situation where they're choosing a school. Neroff Kings made this point this week about in New Orleans, it's very important to have letter grades because it really is a Choice System. When you put the letter grades out there as a part of the application form, the enrollment form ...

Robert: It changes behavior.

Mike: It changes behavior, and parents will gravitate towards the better schools. And that makes sense. Part of this is about, "Look does Carmen Farina believe in a Choice System, or not?" If your assumption is that most kids are going to go to their neighborhood school and the goal then is to give feedback to those schools, so that they can have self-improvement, fine.

If you actually want transparency so parents can make choices, you've got to make a system that is transparent. That means having, I think, the letter grade is the most easily understood way, or something that parents can get their head around that basically says, "This school is quite good, and this school sucks."

Robert: Right. Two things. One, it does end up when you’re looking at schools in affluent neighborhoods, you’re differentiating between good, better, and best. In low income neighborhoods, you're differentiating between bad, worse, and, "Oh my God."

Mike: No, no. Hold on Robert. Not if you're looking at growth. If you’re looking at proficiency rates, yes.

Robert: Here we go again.

Mike: If you're looking at growth, there are some of those poorer schools that are doing great, and can use pro-growth.

Robert: You know what I always say, "Growth matters most, until it doesn't."

Mike: Ugh.

Robert: Until they get out into the real world and they're not interested in how much you've grown. They're interested in how much you know.

Mike: Well, but if we're judging schools, not individual kids, then growth is what matters. Especially at the elementary level.

Robert: Fair enough. Let me make one other point, which I don’t think is getting enough play in this A through F thing in New York City. Carmen Farina, in her speech, rolling out the new system talked about what she wanted the system to encourage. She said, "A supportive environment that recognizes that social and emotional growth is as important as academic growth."

Like, woe, wait a minute. It's important. Is it as important? That's the problem with this report card. It can start to impose, does this sound familiar? Her values, Bill de Blasio's values on what you look for in schools, and grade them accordingly.

If she's looking for, and these are the things she says they're looking for, "Rigorous instruction." Is my definition the same as yours Chancellor? She’s looking for "Collaborative teachers and a culture of trust." Whatever that means.

I'm not sure that's what I necessarily what I want. I'm not saying those things are not important. But is that the thing that you're going to keep score by? Color me skeptical.

Mike: I will color you skeptical. Is that an official crayon color? Can I find it in a box?

Robert: It's the 65th color.

Mike: Ah, excellent. Okay, that's all the time we've got for "Pardon the Gadfly". Now it's time for everyone's favorite. "Amber's Research Minute." Welcome back to the show, Amber.

Amber: Thank you. Mike.

Mike: Have you been watching the baseball?

Amber: Of course. I was at the game Saturday night. I left in the 15th inning.

Mike: Oh, you're kidding me? You were there?

Amber: I'm like, "I can’t deal with it anymore." 15th inning, and then we lost. It was nuts.

Mike: I know. Were you freezing, too?

Amber: Freezing.

Mike: Yeah?

Amber: Freezing, but man it was a great game. But I cannot believe we did not hang on to it. We had that one stinking run for inning after inning, after inning, after inning.

Mike: Yes.

Amber: Then, boom, we lost it. It was aggravating. But , we came back, woo-hoo. Good game.

Mike: Yes. So Amber, a National's fan. I love it.

Amber: I am a National's fan.

Mike: Woo. Okay. Well, what have you got for us this week?

Amber: I have a new NBER paper called, "Is it worth it? Post-secondary education and labor market outcomes for the disadvantaged." You're going to like this one, Mike.

Mike: Oh, I do like it. By the way, speaking of being a National's fan. Amber's also an MBER fan.

Amber: I am. I always kind of gravitate to these things.

Mike: You need a mascot of some sort. Don’t you think? Let me talk to Carolyn Hotsbie about that.

Amber: Anyhoo, A List examined outcomes for disadvantaged kids. Post-secondary outcomes, like enrolling, and completing a degree. The Vocational certificate, and salary data after high school for 5 years after the student leaves his last educational institution. It's one of these rare longitudinal studies that we hardly ever get.

Al right. They used administrative data in Florida for two cohorts of students who number over 210,000. They graduated between 200 and 2002, so they were able to observe them for ten to twelve years.

Mike: Wow.

Amber: Post-secondary and labor market outcomes. Then a ton of data. Secondary, post-secondary school, earning, courses taken in high school, grades they got on those courses, GPA. The college data includes credit earned, major, degree attainment. I mean it was like a major data study.

Mike: Yes.

Amber: The control for demographics and prior achievement in high school, which you've got to do that. Two key results. Number one, gaps in secondary school achievement likely accounts for a large portion of the differences in post-secondary attainment and labor market outcomes between disadvantaged kids and those who aren't. Which is kind of ...

Mike: It is a preparation gap.

Amber: Yes, that's right.

Mike: Basically, it kids who are not well prepared for college.

Amber: Then it carries through. Right.

Mike: Right, sure.

Amber: Number two. Earnings for disadvantaged kids are hampered by low completion rates in post-secondary programs. Poor college performance, and not, this is the most interesting part to me. Not selecting high earning fields. Which we've seen this before.

Here's the part you're going to like. I'm sorry I'm plucking you! They found that Vocational certificates and Associates Degrees in health, transportation, construction, manufacturing and security, are relatively high paying fields for disadvantaged students. As well as though who score in the bottom half of all high school achievers. Particularly young African American men, who see the greatest compensation in these fields.

Mike: Interesting.

Amber: Financial returns in the humanities are relatively low compared to virtually all other fields.

Mike: Shocking.

Amber: We've heard this before.

Mike: Yes.

Amber: Specifically, those earning Vocational certificates in some of these areas, earn 30% more than high school grads. Those with Associates Degrees, roughly 35-40% more.

Finally, analysts recommend that public institutions do a better job partnering with industry. We've heard that awhile. And generating better career pathways, talked about that for a while. And that more high quality apprenticeships be made available for disadvantaged kids.

Mike: I love it, love it, love it!

Amber: I thought you would.

Robert: Yes. How about counseling high school students to look at some of these fields?

Amber: Yes. That's a [crosstalk 00:16:00].

Mike: Oh, but Robert? That starts to sounds an awful lot like tracking.

Robert: Ugh, of course it does.

Mike: Are you going to start saying we're going to send the poor minority kids into those security fields, and the rich kids get to study the humanities?

Robert: I don’t know. I'm remembering my father wanting me to take a television repair course, which he talked to me about on my way to college.

Amber: Wow. Isn’t that something.

Mike: Yeah.

Robert: He wanted me to have a skill to fall back on.

Mike: This is the heart of the issue. Now here you are Robert, well known supportive of Core Knowledge, which is heavy on humanities.

Robert: Sure.

Mike: So how do you square this? Are you a believer that all kids should go get that broad, rich, deep, large education K-12?

Robert: Well sure, because it's not vocational. I mean that really pays benefits with language proficiency. That's one of the great misconceptions about a so-called Liberal Arts education. It doesn’t prepare you to major in Art History. It prepares you to have a big vocabulary, and to work well in whatever field you work in.

Mike: All right. Would you say then that they need that in K-12, or let's say how about K-8? Then they can start doing something that's explicitly technical, vocational, in high school.

Robert: Yes, you really want to have the tracking argument, don’t you?

Mike: Yes I do!

Amber: You say you're going to do both. Mike, you’re going to say one thing…

Mike: Exactly. All right, you're going to do both. You've got to start, let's face it, at some point in high school, I think probably 9th or 10th grade.

Robert: Sure.

Mike: If you start getting kids on a more technical track, that is okay.

Robert: I do think it's okay, as long as you're building a good solid common foundation. In K-5, or K-8.

Mike: There it is.

Amber: Right.

Amber: By that age, kids are growing up faster than they used to. By 10th grade, you know doggone well whether you want to go to college or not. You've got some idea of what you’re interested in.

Mike: Yeah.

Amber: I don’t think it's completely unfair to start having those conversations with kids.

Robert: Kids are going to have those thoughts regardless.

Amber: Yes.

Mike: Were they able to look at any of the common poverty traps? Like, "The reason that the kids were not completing, is because they have early pregnancy, or incarceration, or substance abuse?"

Amber: No, they did not. But you know we're going to be looking at that question.

Mike: I love it. I love it. By the way, these kinds of data that we can link all together is what makes a lot of people very nervous.

Amber: Very nervous.

Mike: They didn’t ask the kids, "Do you own or have a gun in the home?" Did they?

Amber: No, they did not.

Mike: They did not! Listen to that people. We don’t ask those questions to people. Okay? But it is very helpful to be able to do these studies where we find out ...

Robert: You’re a brave man Mr. Pachelli.

Mike: What happens from education to labor market. This is super important.

Robert: It sure is.

Mike: I'd also be curious to know about family formation stuff.

Amber: Yes.

Mike: Were these kids who ended up getting good jobs, were they then more likely to get married, etc.

Amber: Yes.

Mike: This is the kind of stuff that is very powerful.

Amber: Many more questions to be asking, but yeah, we've got to keep doing these studies.

Robert: This was a good study.

Mike: You know what Amber? It was great.

Amber: NBER.

Mike: I love NBER almost as much as the Cardinals.

Amber: I could have done this, or yet another Common Core survey. I mean, come on.

Mike: Thanks you. All right guys. That’s all the time we've got for this week. Until next week ...

Transcript

Michelle: Hello, this is your host, Michelle Gininger of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute here at the Education Gadfly Show and online at edexcellence.net. And now please join me in welcoming my co-host, the Braveheart of ed reform, Robert Pondiscio.

Robert: Freedom. How was that?

Michelle: Eh, not loud enough. See ...

Robert: Oh, OK, well, best I can do.

Michelle: So why are we talking about Braveheart? Explain.

Robert: Scottish independence, which didn't happen, but it could have.

Michelle: It could have.

Robert: It could have.

Michelle: It nearly happened. Everyone was talking about how the vote was a wide margin. I didn't think it was that wide. I think ...

Robert: Was it 56-44, I believe?

Michelle: Yeah, that's pretty close.

Robert: Right.

Michelle: Like deciding the future of your country.

Robert: Yep. In my other life I teach civics at a charter school in New York City, and this was a big topic for discussion for us because this was history, our own history, being revisited 250 years later. I think my students thought that they were going to vote "yes," and they voted "no," but still, a fascinating story.

Michelle: Had they seen "Braveheart"?

Robert: That's a great question. No, I don't know.

Michelle: Because they're so young that they might not have seen the movie which is ...

Robert: They might have missed it.

Michelle: ... really sad.

Robert: Might have missed it. Twenty years ago now?

Michelle: Yeah, it's a long time ago.

Robert: Back when people knew who Mel Gibson was?

Michelle: Well, on that note, let's play part on the Gadfly.

Ellen: Last week, 16- and 17-year-olds were allowed to vote in the Scottish independence referendum. Should we do the same in America? Would it encourage schools to do a better job with civics education?

Michelle: OK, Mr. Civics ...

Robert: Wow. Those are two very, very different questions, and I think I'm going to surprise you with my answer.

"Would it encourage schools to do a better job with civics education?" Yeah, probably.

"Should we allow 16- to 17-year-olds to vote?" This is heresy, but I don't think so.

Michelle: Why not?

Robert: Because they're kids, Michelle. Why would you want 16- and 17- ... This is funny. I do civics education. It's one of my passions in this field, so you would think, "Of course Pondiscio's going to want 16- and 17-year-olds to vote." I'm not sure I even want them to drive let alone vote.

Michelle: You're not for expanding the vote. You want to take away the rights: driving. Anything else you want to add to that?

Robert: Now hold on a second. I'm not taking away the right for 16- and 17-year-olds to vote. They don’t have it yet.

I guess, and this is again a little bit of heresy on my part, the more time I spend doing civic education, the more time I think that our goal should not be to encourage more voting, it should be to encourage more informed voting. And I'm not sure that just creating an entitlement for 16- and 17-year-olds to vote ...

On the one hand, maybe it would incentive them to pay more attention. On the other hand, based on just the sample size that I see of high school students, do we want them to vote? Are the paying attention to the news? If you could convince me that we could create boxcar numbers of really deeply informed 16- and 17-year-olds paying attention to the news, civically engaged, then sure. I think we've got to do one before we can do the other.

Michelle: I agree. I don't know that 16- and 17-year-olds should vote, and I also don't want to get into the "Are these kids ... Do they know enough about civics to vote?" Because what are you going to do, have a civics test? And then are we going to have a voting test? All of those sort of things that's down a rabbit hole we absolutely in no way want to go down.

I think the fact that Scotland did not win independence ...

Robert: And those kids could vote.

Michelle: ... and those kids could vote I think is perhaps an indication that 16- and 17-year-olds could vote, and it wouldn't drive everything crazy. They wouldn’t be voting for insane candidates or ... Another question is, could we do any worse than we're already doing?

Robert: If you want to set the bar there, Michelle. I haven't seen the breakdown of the Scottish vote, but I'm assuming that 16- and 17-year-olds broke heavily for independence.

Michelle: Yes, I would assume so as well.

Robert: Right.

Michelle: So if they still didn't even get independence, maybe our 16- and 17-year-olds can vote and not want to legalize marijuana and lower the alcohol age and all these things that perhaps we would assume 16- and 17-year-olds would care about.

Robert: Lower the age of compulsory education.

Michelle: Yeah.

Robert: Do all kind of mischief.

Michelle: Exactly. All right. Question #2.

Ellen: A recent "This American Life" episode told listeners about a New York State school board battle that escalated into an all-out war, complete with threats of violence and felony charges. In a democracy, where we respect majority rule, what could have been done to prevent the conflict?

Michelle: This is not a new story, but "This American Life" just recently covered it, and after you've finished listening to our podcast, I encourage everyone to go listen to that podcast, but not before you reach the end of ours.

Robert: After you watch "Braveheart."

Michelle: Actually, it's going to be third on the to do list after "Braveheart."

This isn't a new study, but I was listening to it on my morning commute into the office, and I thought the person next to me on the Metro was going to ask if I was OK because I was sitting there just getting so up in arms about the whole thing. Because talk about a breakdown in governance.

For too long we haven't focused on the governance aspect of education, and in this civics edition of the podcast, let's take it on. Robert, what's your take?

Robert: I want to answer a slightly different question. One are the things, and this is a difficult device and story. Makes me a little bit sad, and I'm going to put back on my civics educator hat again.

I'm very fond of reminding people ... We talk all the time in our current ed reform era about college and career. The two C's. I like to remind people that it was a third C that started it all, and that was "citizenship."

If you go back and you read the work in Don Hirsch, Edie Hirsch's book, "The Making of Americans" talks a lot about this. You go back and look at the founding thinkers of American education, names you never hear any more like Benjamin Rush and Noah Webster, they were not concerned with things like college, career, STEM subjects, etc. They were really concerned with creating what Benjamin Rush called, I think, "republican machines." Small R republican.

Our entire public school system was really about making Americans. Creating this class of citizen who were deeply informed, who were capable of managing their own affairs.

This story just says to me how far we have strayed from that, and how much we've simply forgotten that we invest so much money in public education for a reason. We want self-governing, thoughtful citizens. This just shows how easily it can all fall apart.

Michelle: I think this story is shocking in that it was a total breakdown of the public good and the private good of education.

Robert: Exactly.

Michelle: And we talk about that all the time. I want my kids to be well prepared, and have a great life, and be able to go on to college, and get a good career, and raise a family, and all of these great things. But I want all of your kids to do the exact same thing.

Robert: Sure.

Michelle: Mostly because it's what's best for our country, but also you can take the very fiscal route of we don't want to pay for people not to be able to support themselves.

Robert: I wrote a blog post about this not long ago in response to Andy Smarick's very nice series about conservativism and ed reform. And I made what I thought was just a simple point, which is that there's an institutional value to public education that we tend to forget sometimes when we're focused on what you called that "private good," that "I'm going to go to college, I'm going to get a good job, I'm going to be upwardly mobile."

There is an institutional anchor purpose that schools serve in a community. On the one hand, we all want schools to perform better, but I worry sometimes that we can lose site of what is essentially a large, important public institution in our communities. And it sounds like the folks that "This American Life" were talking to have completely lost sight of that.

Michelle: It would be interesting if in this new Common Core debate we're having, we bring that idea into it a little bit. Obviously Common Core isn't breaking down the school system like this example, but it would be interesting if everyone just took a step back. OK, Common Core high standards, what does this mean for the purpose of schooling? And I think we could have perhaps a more productive debate.

Robert: Yep, and you're never going to hear me argue against civic education. It is that third C: college, career, and citizenship. I always like to remind people of that.

Michelle: I like it. OK, Ellen, question #3.

Ellen: On Saturday "The Economist" reported on the rise of think-tank journalism, a trend that's blurring an old line between creating news and distributing it. Is this change a good thing? Are there pitfalls?

Michelle: This isn't an education story per se, but I think that there's an education angle we can get to.

Robert: Sure there is.

Michelle: And there's certainly a civics education angle we can get to [crosstalk 09:03].

Robert: And here's my second movie reference vis-a-vis journalism. "I keep trying to get out. They keep dragging me back in." Name the movie.

Michelle: I can't. I'm drawing a blank.

Robert: Godfather III.

Michelle: Oh, yeah.

Robert: Yeah. I started my career in journalism. I still to this day spend far more years in radio news and the magazine business than I have in the classroom or here.

Yeah, these lines are blurry, but part of it is ... Look, American journalism has been sort of on a suicide mission for several years. If you're looking for high quality, thoughtful content about any public issue, there's a vacuum that needs to be filled, and folks like us like to think we have a role in filling it.

Michelle: Absolutely, I think that this isn't necessarily the traditional story that journalism ... there's so few journalism ... journalism is failing and think tanks are filling the void.

I actually view it from a little bit of the opposite view. Instead of there being so many beat reporters and straight up journalism where you're just reporting on the story, or even doing an investigative story, so many journalists today are jumping to this commentary aspect. This "what does it all mean?" thing, which is not necessarily a bad thing, and I enjoy reading it, and I sort of appreciate it. But that role is more a role that think tankers have often taken.

So I think that it's actually journalism is going more towards the think-tank world as opposed to the think-tank world adapting to the journalism world.

Robert: That's one, and you alluded to before there's a loss of subject specialty knowledge as well. I'll give you a good example. I worked for years at Time Magazine. Back when I started, we had a dedicated religion reporter, a law reporter, lots of science reporters, an education reporter. Now everybody is a generalist.

Michelle: On the Media, clearly everyone knows I listen to NPR all day, On the Media just did a story on the loss of the beat reporter, so this is something that's well known and out there. Now within education reporting, Mike Petrilli has an interesting column coming out in the next edition of Education Next about how education journalism seems to be flourishing. So maybe in the local paper in Louisville there's not an ed reporter any more, though don't quote me on that. I feel bad for Louisville now. They're might be an ed reporter.

But we're seeing so much specialized reporting on whether it's Vox, whether it's VentureBeat launching an education channel. The Atlantic has an education channel. There is a focus on education. All the Chalkbeats.

Robert: Right.

Michelle: We can list and list and list examples.

Robert: But hold on, Michelle. Why do you think that's happening?

Michelle: Well it's foundation funded.

Robert: And what makes education news sexy from the standpoint of a journalist? What do we have that a lot of other beats don't have?

Michelle: Conflict.

Robert: Exactly. We love conflict. And whenever people are willing to beat themselves bloody and get in high dudgeon over something that makes for good copy, you're going to see more attention.

Michelle: And we have lots and lots and lots of players on both sides who ...

Robert: Both sides?

Michelle: ... happy to step up to the plate.

Robert: There are multiple sides.

Michelle: Multiple sides. All right. That's all the time we have for Pardon the Gadfly. Thanks so much, Robert.

Robert: Thank you.

Michelle: Up next is Amber's Research Minute.

Welcome to the show, Amber.

Amber: Thanks, Michelle.

Michelle: Have you seen "Braveheart"?

Amber: "Braveheart?" As in Mel Gibson?

Michelle: Mel Gibson. Yeah.

Amber: Of course.

Michelle: That's a little out of left field. I'm sorry. But we were talking about the Scottish independent vote.

Amber: Ah, gotcha.

Michelle: And that was our pop culture reference.

Amber: Love that movie. Mel Gibson was phenomenal in it. I think it's a movie that appeals to women and men, which doesn't always happen. But yeah, I really enjoyed it.

Michelle: Do you think it's because Mel Gibson is so young?

Amber: He's some pretty good eye candy, right? At least back then.

Robert: Used to be.

Amber: Back then. Back then.

Michelle: All right. What do you have for us today?

Amber: We have a new study out. And by the way, it's a little long, but I'm going to do my darnedest to get through it quickly, but there's important stuff in here. It's called "Examining the Relationship Between Teachers' Instructional Practices and Students' Math Achievement."

Analysts studies two instructional practices in math. One, engaging students in discourse with the teacher and their peers to make sense of problems and explain their answers. We've heard a lot about this with the Common Core math. Explain your answer.

#2, using appropriate mathematical vocabulary.

Importantly, these practices reflect the mathematical practices of the common core, but that actually wasn't the purpose of the study, which is why I like the study. That was sort of like an afterthought. They realized later, hey, these actually reflect what the Common Core says in little bit different terms. The Common Core talks about constructing viable arguments and critiquing the reasoning of others. And the Common Core talks about attending to precision, including the use of appropriate mathematical vocabulary.

So there was a decent overlap between what they were studying and what the Common Core math practices say.

The study occurred as part of a larger evaluation of Project M-Squared, which is an advanced math curriculum covering geometry and measurement in Grades K through 2. I normally don't do evaluations of curriculum, but I like this study.

The final sample includes 34 Grade K-2 teachers and 560 students who participated in the field test of the larger evaluation. Teachers were randomly assigned to the intervention and control groups. The intervention group teachers attended roughly 10 days total of PD. That's not chump change. They were observed weekly during the study, which was a big deal. Whereby they were rated on fidelity of implementation to the content and those two instructional strategies.

The kids were administered the Iowa Test of Basic Skills as a pre-test and as a control.

Bottom line. Teachers' implementation scores for those two strategies significantly predicted math achievement as gauged by the students' gained scores on an outcome measure known as the Open Response Assessment, which had me scratching my head. In other words, a kindergartener who was average on the ITBS standard score, and his teacher was rated "always implementing these practices," basically could be expected to gain about 72% pre- to post-test on this measure.

Problem is, at the front of this, it sounds like, wow, this is great data that bolsters evidentiary claims of the Common Core math, which people are always acting like, "let's see the evidence."

But they developed because there's nothing. And they're kind of like you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't because there's no good measure for geometry and measurement in Grades K-2, so they had to develop their own. So they developed both outcome measure, and they developed the classroom observation measure.

Lo and behold, the teachers who scored well on these measures, the kids did well, and so you kind of have to call into question the validity and the soundness of the findings because the analysts and the researchers themselves both created and evaluated the ... created the measures and evaluated the outcomes for the curriculum.

I didn't like that, but at the same time, I thought, wow ... What gave it credibility at the outset in my mind, they didn’t go into this thing saying we're going to measure these two Common Core math practices. It was just sort of an ah-ha moment was kind of how I read it when they reflected back on the evaluation.

Robert: But I'm going to push you on something that you said early on. You said you don’t like to do evaluative studies of curriculum and instruction? Why?

Amber: Sometimes they just really, really micro-level in some ways, so if you look at what works clearinghouse, a six in math ...

Robert: What doesn't work in clearinghouse?

Amber: You've got about 50 different nuances that you can't cover. Granted I do 2 minutes around here, but, you really can't give justice to, and I think in some ways a lot of these studies are supported by the curriculum developers themselves. So unless it's an external evaluation by a third party, I ...

Robert: I'm just always going to be the guy that wants to see more study of curriculum and instruction because I'm always going to be that guy who says, that's what really matters.

Amber: I think around here we care more about curriculum obviously now than we used to. But there are scads of evaluations. I used to work at a firm that did this for a living. And obviously, any developer of anything wants to have their product evaluated. But obviously it's always best if they're not paying for the evaluation. That's usually the nature of the beast. And if you hire a qualified evaluator, then that's half the battle of making sure you've got some reliable information from reliable evaluators.

Robert: But am I also not right to say that the effect sizes that we know of are larger for a curriculum than for most other factors?

Amber: I think it depends ... I know that the success for all has posted some pretty impressive research. I'm not so sure ... When you look at What Works Clearinghouse, I'm actually surprised there are more evaluations of curriculum. I don't know if you've looked at it.

Robert: But to your point, that has to do with the nature of the studies as opposed to the curriculum, generally.

Amber: Right. Yeah. If it's a well done study. Yeah, and you've got a decent sample size, and all that good stuff.

Robert: More well done studies of curriculums, please.

Amber: Yes. And I was hoping this was one. And it sorta, kinda was, but then once I read that they had developed all the measures, I wasn't as enamored. But regardless what I liked was that they really went down and got into a specific practice. You know how, Robert.

Robert: Absolutely.

Amber: Sometimes you just look at the curriculum writ large, and you don't really know what is the "it" about the curriculum that actually is doing something good.

Amber: Yeah, and these two defined strategies. They just didn’t look at Project M-Squared, like what's it? And looked at these two specific things, so, that's the kind of detailed information that useful for teachers on the ground.

Robert: Absolutely.

Amber: Anyway.

Robert: It was a disappointment.

Amber: Yeah.

Robert: Just like "Braveheart."

Amber: Sorry, Michelle, I got a little wonky today.

Michelle: No, I like it, and you know, any time you mention curriculum in front of Robert, you know where the conversation's going to go.

Robert: Sorry, ladies.

Michelle: All right. Thanks so much, Amber.

Amber: You're welcome.

Michelle: And that's all the time we have for this week's Gadfly Show. Til next week.

This year’s state report cards brought a new twist for some Columbus parents—a parent trigger. Parent triggers, made famous by several high profile efforts in California and a major motion picture, allow a majority of parents in (usually) low-performing schools to force changes to how that school operates. If this sounds to you like a recipe for controversy, you’re right. Even here at Fordham, Mike and Checker have taken different views on whether the pursuit of a parent trigger is worth the effort.

As for me, I’m a huge proponent of empowering parents. Giving dissatisfied parents at low-performing schools the opportunity to take control of their school does that. I’m not an ideologue though, and care most about whatever leads to better academic and life outcomes for kids. The question then is whether the parent trigger is a tool that should be used or even expanded in Ohio.

Just the facts

Ohio’s parent trigger law was passed as part of the state budget bill in 2011 (House Bill 153). It’s designated as a pilot program affecting only Columbus City schools that have been ranked in the bottom five percent of all schools in the state on the performance index for three consecutive years. Because it requires three years of data, 2014-15 is the first year that Columbus district schools could be affected by the trigger. There are twenty-one schools eligible this year—more information on the eligible schools is below.

Andy Smarick, a partner in Bellwether Partners and a Bernard Lee Schwartz Policy Fellow at Fordham, dropped by Columbus last week to shake up the educational status quo, discussing his book The Urban School System of the Future.

The event, co-hosted by Fordham and School Choice Ohio, began with the premise that the century-old structure of the traditional school district is “broken” in large urban areas, leading to a long-standing cycle of poor performance for students and reform efforts that merely seek to “rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic” while retaining intact the flawed structure. In fact, Smarick argued that maintaining the district structure—and primacy—was often the starting point of many reforms. Charters were conceived as radical departures from the status quo—groups of teachers going off on their own to “reinvent schooling” outside the existing paradigm—but today are defined primarily in terms of how (and whether) they are better or worse than the district schools in their vicinity. Private school vouchers and tax-credit programs were born as “escape mechanisms” for families from failing district schools, without directly addressing the structural failings of the district that led to the need for escape in the first place.

Tens of thousands of students in Ohio, and many more nationwide have taken advantage of school choices and alternatives to traditional districts and yet very little reform of districts has actually happened despite the exodus occurring in every large city.

In an era of increased teacher-effectiveness data, school leaders have unprecedented potential to be more strategic about their decision-making. Unfortunately, it’s not always easy for principals to access, analyze, and apply this information. A recent study released by Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College examines common hurdles to effective data use and suggests ways in which districts can better support principals to guide critical staffing decisions (e.g., hiring, placement, professional development, and retention, which together they dub “talent management decisions”). Based on hundreds of site visits, surveys, and interviews with principals in six urban school districts and two charter management organizations (CMOs) that have invested substantially in these improvements, analysts offer many practical recommendations. Among them: hold principals accountable for effective data use, differentiate principal training and support by specific data need, consolidate district statistics into a single dashboard (organized by talent-management decision type), and provide principals with ongoing access to multiyear information. Although a handful of the report’s final recommendations feel more aspirational than easy-to-implement, overall, Vanderbilt’s report provides districts and CMOs with helpful and concrete recommendations on how to help principals use effectiveness data to identify and retain the best teachers in our classrooms. Teacher quality is the most important school-based factor influencing student learning. Regardless of whether teacher-effectiveness data is drawn from classroom observations, value-added estimates, or student, parent, or peer surveys, it’s essential to provide principals with access to comprehensive effectiveness data and sufficient training, and support for how to use it well.

Judging by the rhetoric of some legislators and wonks, it may come as a shock that public policy is not the stuff of magic whereby just the right regulatory language will, like one of Harry Potter’s spells, instantly reduce a monster of a problem to dust. Instead, policy is about the careful consideration of a series of tradeoffs. Education reformers in particular have been accused of leaping from one panacea to the next, rather than carefully considering practical alternatives. That doesn’t mean, however, there aren’t still a number of critical ingredients that must be a part of any witch’s brew to cure what ails our education system. One of them is the reform of, if not removal of, tenure.

Everyone has his or her own list of prerequisites to a great education system. For some, it might be small class sizes and wraparound services that reach the “whole child.” In my view, it includes parent-empowering school choice, a reduction of the compliance culture to promote innovation, and strong standards and accountability. The other essential items on the list? Staffing policies that allow us to recruit, retain, and reward the best and brightest would-be educators and leaders.

We have countless teachers who would meet anyone’s definition of “outstanding,” but we are missing a great deal more due to illogical policies that exist in nearly every state, for example, those that protect bad teachers and get rid...

Last week, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal sued the U.S. Department of Education over the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), with a particular focus on the role that Race to the Top (RTTT) played in encouraging their adoption. And three days later, rumors arose that Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin might haul that same agency into court for revoking its No Child Left Behind (NCLB) waiver. Together these two suits bring some of the most criticized recent federal education policies under legal scrutiny. But President Obama’s conditional waivers are much more vulnerable to legal challenge than is his Race to the Top initiative. Here’s why:

Jindal’s lawsuit claims that the federal government has used legislation to incentivize state adoption of the CCSS. The complaint asks the court to (1) declare that these actions violate the United States Constitution and a number of federal statutes and (2) enjoin the federal government from continuing. There are a number of lenses through which the court could view these actions.

Let’s first look at the constitutional claim, which has virtually no chance of success. Louisiana alleges that the feds’ standards push violates state sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment, which reads: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”